ELECTION '96.

President Lays Claim To Crime Drop

DENVER — President Clinton flanked himself with Denver-area police officers Sunday as he sought to credit his crime-fighting policies for the latest drop in crime reports.

The police at his side, he noted, all had been hired since the passage during his administration of crime legislation that sent money to police departments for additional officers.

"I know we will never eliminate crime completely, but we proved we can turn it around. Four years in a row, the crime rate has dropped. It's now at a 10-year low," Clinton said.

The FBI released statistics over the weekend showing the number of violent crimes fell 8 percent during 1995 in eight cities with populations over a million. Nationally, violent crime fell 3 percent, and overall, crimes reported to police fell 1 percent, the FBI reported.

Clinton cited as contributing factors the administration's crime bill, which eventually will pay for the hiring of 100,000 additional police officers, and restrictions on gun purchases passed under his administration. Assault weapons have been banned and the Brady Bill requires a criminal background check on handgun purchasers.

The FBI report, Clinton said, "shows that we are on the right track."

However, reported crimes, which reached a peak in 1991, started falling during the administration of Republican President George Bush. Moreover, the most dramatic improvement in recent years has been in New York City, where Republican Mayor Rudolph Giuliani has made better policing the priority of his administration.

Criminologists have not settled on the cause of the national decrease in crime rates, but most academic experts believe that, whatever role Clinton's policies have played, other factors also have helped bring down crime rates.

Longer prison sentences, improved policing techniques and a drop in the proportion of the population in its teenage years are thought to play a role.

The president used the campaign visit in Denver to sign more crime-related legislation. The law, passed by the Republican-controlled Congress, stiffens penalties for use of an illegal drug that increasingly has been connected with so-called date rapes.

The drug, Rohypnol, is a sedative more powerful than Valium. Tasteless, odorless and easily dissolved in alcohol, the drug has been implicated in sexual assaults, particularly on college campuses.

Although illegal to produce or prescribe in the United States, the drug is used in other countries to treat insomnia or anxiety and sometimes is smuggled into the country.

Clinton said rapists who slip the drug into the drinks of their victims are making "a sick attempt to facilitate their violent crimes," Clinton said. "We must do everything we can to stop it."

The U.S. Customs Service has been seizing Rohypnol at the borders since March. But the law makes its possession punishable by 3 years' imprisonment and adds severe penalties for its use to commit a violent crime. The Justice Department also is ordered to study reclassifying the drug so penalties for its possession can be raised to the level of such hard drugs as cocaine and heroin.

The president also spoke Sunday at a rally in Albuquerque along historic Route 66. He will remain in Albuquerque until Wednesday to prepare for the final presidential debate.